Noize and I had a friendly debate about this. This is the biggest thing that drives me nuts about . Their car could be so much more powerful with even a mild updated factory tune. It just doesn't make sense to me why they don't go higher. Is it a Gruppe N thing? (Being under 300hp 4 cyl 2.0 liter)?

 

There used to be a Japanese auto gentlemen's agreement to keep their cars at 280 hp. Maybe Mitsubishi is stuck on that.

 

i'm not sure why about the power, but i do recall the developers saying something about how that's not really the focus of the evo, and that they didn't really like what they were doing with the fq models..

good results from the X SE, definitely all the best go fast bits of the current gen car rolled into one. nothing to "swallow pride" about but that's a different story.

very very impressed by the mustang v6, GT, and GT500 as well

 

I've never been a fan of car and driver

their 20XX 10 best cars of the year lists hardly change and this year's was downright dull and boring

they never seem to update their long-term fleet (they have a Ralliart Sportback in there and they haven't updated in months)

and just browsing through their magazine is boring. None of their articles are that interesting. That's all my opinion, but I much prefer Motor Trend

 

That doesn't really make much sense. I mean yah, it's not what the evo is about. It's about handling. But the evo could easily knock off a few seconds in laptimes if they just added a bit more umph. Just surprising I guess.

 

yeah but i just really dont think that they care about laptimes up to a certain point.. its not like it's a coincidence that they've kept the straightline speed relatively the same for the last 10+ years. horsepower is a selling point, and i think for the japan the faster the car with less hp the more respect too.

finally, if they add hp people will say the only reason the new car is faster is because it has more power. they wanna take that factor out of the equation

 

I want to know how that low revving ~265hp Audi TTS did that 3:08 last year? Sandwiched between a GT 5.0 (which has almost a 150HP advantage) and an Evora? Sounds like a ringer car to me.

 

Good point.

Yah we were debating that last year. We couldn't figure it out. It is a great car, but I don't think it's that great of a car.

 

Since when is C&D a source for proper test data? Please folks if we all would build our knowledge based on C&D we all would be driving a Volt soon.

 

Honestly to me it doesn't seem that unrealistic.. very good car, good 4wd system with active rear diff, relatively light (32xx lbs), very good engine, chassis, suspension, etc. i really like the current tts and s4

 

no. Has nothing to do with Rally rules. I do think they just over do the engine safety, which is actually hurts the car .
I also believe they try to keep the JDM gentlemen rules in place as much as market let them. Maybe im out of line here, though... LOL
The rich tune , keeps the engine running lower temperature so will theoretically make the engine less longer. Also less hg - tq makes the car drive train hold together longer.
But who really knows. There is not an explanation , they cant tune it better. It is just stupid argument there.
If anyone believe shop tuners can tune the car better then those engineers, they have a problem to understand how skilled those guys who build and engineered the car .
So they are the ones who really know why is this happening ALL the time with the Evo.
I think one of the most under tuned car on the market as its been always...
maybe that is one reason why its became so big legend among the tuner community.

 

I for one enjoy this article and look forward to it each year. For those knocking it, why not read the article and make substantial claims about what's wrong with the test and how one would do it better. They don't really compare different years that much other than a few references, they just give the results. I'm pretty sure all cars got multiple runs to try and filter out an outlier result. Why is, for example, the top gear times people always quote any better than this ? I actually find the result for the EVO this year relative to the Mustang GT or STI quite plausible.

 

I see the sti is behind the evo and that's all i really care about .

 

If you watch the video , the shocking thing was that the V6 Mustang had a 114 mph limiter and they said it spent 14 seconds on that limiter. Not only was it faster than the STI , but without the limiter it might have been much faster. It's not so much of a secretary or hair dresser car anymore I suppose.

 

You lost me at very good engine. Long stroke low rev, DI, tiny turbo... bag of compromises. The power:weight is just not there to run with the GT on a track like VIR.

The only place I can find the X and the TTS heads up is a Best Motoring wet lap on Tsukuba, where the Evo got the Audi by 2 tenths.

I think this is starting to sound like our late 2009 discussion.

High five!